Population Aging: Challenges and Opportunities for the Tourism Industry

Abstract

In the coming years, people aged 60 years and over will account for 22% of the world population. This trend already has profound implications for many facets of human life, including social and economic activities. Within this framework, the World Health Organization coined the expression “active aging” to define the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security to improve quality of life as people age. According to this perspective, tourism activities represent a major means through which older people can increase their participation in society and enhance their quality of life. After depicting the global demographic trends and the challenges of population aging, the first part of the chapter describes the active aging approach. The second part provides an overview of older individuals as presented in marketing literature and practice. Finally, the potentialities of population aging for the tourism industry are discussed and future trends are presented.